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The Mayors Task Force on Affordability in Vancouver has included a number of recommendations to address home affordability. They include fast-tracking development permits for affordable rentals, zoning for more rental housing in the Cambie Corridor and using city land for non-profit and co-op housing.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider
, PNG files

As Vancouver housing prices continue to inflate at unsustainable levels, the Mayor’s office has released a set of recommendations to address affordability.

Fast-tracking development permits for affordable rentals, zoning for more rental housing in the Cambie Corridor and using city land for non-profit and co-op housing were among the suggestions put forward in a preliminary report released by the Mayors Task Force on Affordability this week.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a release that housing affordability is “one of the most difficult challenges we face in Vancouver.”

The Task Force is focusing on measures to ease housing costs for those earning around $21,500 a year and couples and for families who together earn up to $86,500.

Task Force chair Olga Ilich said in a statement that “there is no magic solution to housing affordability in Vancouver, but these initial recommendations will put the city on a clearer path to meeting its affordable housing goals.”

The public will have a chance to make their own suggestions before the final report is due in June.

The Mayors Task Force on Affordability in Vancouver has included a number of recommendations to address home affordability. They include fast-tracking development permits for affordable rentals, zoning for more rental housing in the Cambie Corridor and using city land for non-profit and co-op housing.

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No one knows better than real estate insiders how money flooding in from mainland China is driving up prices in Vancouver, the second-most unaffordable city in the world. Shanghai-based Dan Scarrow, of Macdonald Realty Ltd., has followed the money and is among the few real estate executives speaking candidly about the transformative impact of Chinese wealth on Vancouver.